Abortion-rights advocates sue

Abortion-rights advocates, including Planned Parenthood in Texas, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Austin on Friday that seeks to block two provisions of a recently passed state law that they said would severely restrict women's access to safe, legal abortion.

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The provisions would require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within a 30-mile radius and impose restrictions on medication-induced abortions. Both are scheduled to take effect Oct. 29, but the suit seeks an injunction to halt any action at that time.

Those provisions stand to have the most immediate impact on the largest number of women in Texas who seek abortions, said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

“This law is unconstitutional and it interferes with women's ability to make their own private medical decisions, and it absolutely jeopardizes women's health and safety in Texas,” she said during a telephone conference call with the media.

A spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott, who would defend the law, said his office had no immediate comment on the lawsuit, but he vowed at an anti-abortion rally at the Capitol in July to fight for all new abortion restrictions.

The battle is likely to wind up in a federal appeals court.

In 2011, 72,470 abortions were performed in Texas, including nearly 6,000 in Bexar County, according to the latest state data available.

Two other sections of the law passed by Texas legislators this year — one that ban abortions after 20 weeks, another that requires abortion facilities to perform costly building upgrades — could be addressed in later legal action, abortion rights supporters said during the call.

The 20-week ban affects a statistically small group of women, they said; the second provision isn't scheduled to take effect until September 2014.

The requirement that doctors have admitting privileges could mean that at least one-third of the state's licensed abortion facilities — 13 of 36 clinics — would have to stop doing abortions, according to Jennifer Dalven of the American Civil Liberties Union, which joined the Center for Reproductive Services and a Texas law firm in the suit.

Of the 13 at-risk clinics, five are run by Planned Parenthood.

It has closed three abortion facilities in the last two years — in San Angelo and Midland prior to the new regulations, and in Bryan after the law passed this summer, said spokeswoman Rochelle Tafolla.

Across the state, 10 Planned Parenthood clinics perform abortions while the group's more than 50 other health centers provide cancer screenings and other preventive care, she said.

If enacted, the two provisions could hamper Planned Parenthood's ability to provide abortions at three San Antonio clinics — two provide only medical abortions, one also provides surgical abortions, said Mara Posada, spokeswoman for the six Planned Parenthood health centers in San Antonio.The hospital admitting provision would eliminate access to abortion in much of Texas, including Fort Worth, Harlingen, Killeen, Lubbock, McAllen and Waco, according to a Planned Parenthood statement. Clinics, especially those in smaller towns, often rely on visiting physicians who aren't eligible for admitting privileges locally.

“Some women would have to drive 400 miles each way to access safe and legal abortion,” Dalven said.

Anti-abortion advocate Teresa “Tere” Haring, director of Allied Women's Center in San Antonio, said the two provisions are necessary to protect women's health.

Abortion rights advocates “portray themselves as being the voice of women, so why would they object to these requirements?” she said. “Why not make (abortion) as safe as possible? Why send (women) to a butcher shop? A doctor doesn't have admitting requirements because they've screwed up so bad. Why would you want to use them?”

Action in other states

The restriction on medication-induced, as opposed to surgical, abortions would require doctors to follow “outdated and less effective protocols,” Dalven said, that would limit access to the procedure, used to end early pregnancies.

The newer regimen requires fewer pills and trips to the doctor, entails fewer side effects and is less costly, Posada said.

Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said courts have blocked similar admitting requirements in other states, including Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota and Wisconsin.

State courts in North Dakota and Oklahoma have permanently struck down restrictions on medication abortion.

“The real purpose of these laws is to make it impossible for women to get abortions,” Northrup said. “Gov. Perry's goal, which he has admitted, is to make abortion a thing of the past.... But courts have upheld these fundamental rights again and again and have recognized these assaults for what they are — an underhanded and blatant attempt” to deprive women of their constitutional rights, she said.

Amy Hagstrom Miller, owner of Whole Woman's Surgical Center, the only abortion provider in San Antonio licensed as an ambulatory surgical center, one of only six in Texas, said arguments that the provisions make abortion safer are false.

“In fact, it will make abortion more dangerous, as women take matters in their own hands or seek out illicit providers, trained or not,” she said.

Dr. Lester Minto, an abortion provider in Harlingen, said regardless of how the fight over the abortion law shakes out, he intends to continue providing them, even if it means going to jail.

“I will do this in the bush, under a mesquite tree or under a nopal, whatever it takes,” Minto said. “I've been helping women for 35 years and I'll be damned if a bunch of politicians in Austin are going to tell women what to do.”

In addition to the stricter abortion restrictions, Planned Parenthood across the state has seen its funding reduced in the wake of lawmakers' decision to kick it out of what was the largely federally Texas Women's Health Program. The program, now funded entirely by the state, bans abortion providers or their affiliates.

The San Antonio-based Planned Parenthood affiliate has had to close five clinics in recent years — in Brownsville, Raymondville, Alice, Kingsville and the Las Palmas clinic in San Antonio — none of which provided abortions, Posada said.